Michael Cole
Michael Sean Coulthard (born December 8, 1968), better known by his ring name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator, currently signed to WWE for Extreme on both its SmackDown! brand. Coulthard is a former news journalist. Life and career Journalism Coulthard began his career in the media as a journalist, working for CBS Radio. His first high-profile assignment was to cover the failed 1988 US presidential campaign of Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis. In 1992, he reported on the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. Coulthard covered the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. The following year, he spent nine months covering the Yugoslavian civil war. In 1995 he was also selected to cover the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. He returned to the presidential campaign trail in 1996 to cover the failed campaigns of Steve Forbes and Sen. Bob Dole. World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment (1997–present) Backstage interviewer and Raw (1997–1999) Cole came to the World Wrestling Federation in mid-1997 and started using the stage name "Michael Cole." He became the host of LiveWire show alongside Jim Cornette. Coulthard debuted at SummerSlam, and replaced Todd Pettengill as a backstage interviewer, who left the WWF after the event. In late 1997, Cole became one of the three announcers for the first hour of Monday Night Raw, alongside Jim Ross and Kevin Kelly. Eventually Cole was permanently replaced by Jerry Lawler later in the year. In 1999, Cole became the regular play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Raw subbing for Jim Ross when Ross was devastated by Bell's palsy. SmackDown! (1999–2008) When the promotion's new SmackDown! television program debuted later that year, Cole was chosen to be the show's play-by-play announcer. Originally his broadcast partner was Jerry "The King" Lawler, but when Lawler briefly left the WWF, he was replaced by Cole's WWE Heat broadcast partner Tazz shortly before the WWF vs. WCW/ECW invasion storyline. Cole also had a stint doing commentary on SmackDown!'s former sister show WWE Velocity. As an announcer, Cole was rarely involved in storylines; however, he has had minor roles in storylines involving Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, Heidenreich, Stephanie McMahon, Vito, and D-Generation X (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chyna, and Rick Rude). His 2004 angle with Heidenreich became infamous due to an implied scene where Heidenreich "Heidenraped" him in the arena restroom. In a 2008 interview, Heidenreich explained that the Cole rape angle was McMahon's idea, and that Pulp Fiction came to mind when Stephanie McMahon approached him with the idea. He also appeared in the Taxi Driver parody trailer in promotion of WrestleMania 21. Cole called play-by-play at the 2006 Royal Rumble match because Ross, who had commentated the last three Royal Rumble matches with Tazz, had been "fired" in the storylines and replaced by former ECW play-by-play man Joey Styles, reuniting the original SmackDown! team of Cole and Lawler. On February 3, 2006, it was announced that he and Tazz were starting a radio show on Howard Stern's "Howard 101" radio station on Sirius, airing Thursday through Sunday at 8 pm, but the show was a trial run that only lasted a couple of weeks. On April 26, 2006, WWE announced that Cole would become the Managing Editor of WWE.com. Shortly after, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon told shareholders in a meeting held on September 14 that he believes that the website "sucks". In response, Cole replied on WWE.com about updated content for the website: a broadband network with original web-only shows have been scheduled for October, with a new mobile offering, a re-vamped subscription site and more exclusive videos and photos. Cole went on to say, "So in summary, the web site does suck, compared to where we are going to take it, but it won’t suck for long. Wish I could say the same for the boss." In April of 2006, Cole's broadcast partner Tazz left from SmackDown to ECW, to be replaced by John Bradshaw Layfield. After JBL left the broadcast booth and returned to wrestling action, Jonathan Coachman became Cole's new partner on January 7, 2007. Coachman was then replaced by Mick Foley beginning on the January 9 edition of SmackDown! RAW announcing (2007) As a part of a draft held on the August 25 edition of WWE Saturday Night's Main Event, Cole was drafted to the RAW brand as Jim Ross was drafted to the SmackDown brand. This effectively ended Cole's near 10 year run as play-by-play commentator on Smackdown in which he called every episode except for two. (The two episodes were the pilot and the 9/11 Tribute show, both of which were called by Ross.) He stayed there until SmackDown's temporary close in November of 2007, where he was taken off TV in favor of Ross. Return and NXT (2008-present) ]] When WWE SmackDown! returned to the air in April of 2008, Cole was placed alongside Tazz, who had been replaced on the WWE ECW brand by Matt Striker. Cole is also the color commentator for WWE NXT when the show debuted on February 28, 2008. Cole started to show early signs of a heel turn when he began to belittle certain rookies on the show, mainly Justin Time. On the December 9 episode of WWE NXT, Time attacked Cole as a result of Cole's comments to him over the preceding weeks. Following this, Cole would start to drop the heel aspects of his persona, which he rarely carried over to SmackDown. Personal life Coulthard graduated from Webutuck High School in 1984 and attended the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse University. Coulthard says that his favourite country to visit is South Africa. Coulthard loves Twitter. Coulthard is married to a woman named Yolanda and the couple have two sons, named Calvin and Mark. Coulthard's oldest son, Calvin, also works for WWE in the television production department. Coulthard does commentary in the WWE video games, though he is only available for in-game use via cheat devices such as Xploder. In wrestling *'Nicknames' **"The Texas Seal" Category:1968 births Category:Announcers Category:WWE for Extreme